WordPress Scheduler Error

Sorry, made an error in the above post. In the line define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true); in my wp_config.php file I changed true to false as suggested.

Hi Larry,

This line was in your wp-config.php ?

define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, true);

If so – who added it? If it wasn’t you, then it sounds like your hosting company are deliberately turning off your WP scheduler, and that’d be a hard arms race to win. You should remove the line entirely (not just define it as false), as I’m not sure if WP core checks its value or just checks if it’s defined at all.

Also, try visiting /wp-cron.php on your site several times, and then reload the UD settings page and see if the message about backed-up cron jobs changes at all (even the number).

David

David,

I just looked through my wp-config file and it was still showing up as define(‘DISABLE_WP_CRON’, false);. I did add the define(‘ALTERNATE_WP_CRON’, true); line but that’s not what you’re seeing apparently.

Just looked for wp-cron.php in my cpanel file manager, but it wasn’t there.

Hi Larry,

Can you see the other WordPress files? e.g. wp-load.php. wp-cron.php should be in the same directory. If you can’t see any of them, you’ve got the wrong directory (WP can’t work without existing on the filesystem!). If the others are there, but wp-cron.php is gone then that sounds like your hosting company don’t want you to run scheduled tasks, so you’d need to ask them about how/when/why it was deleted…

David

There was NOT a wp-cron.php file in the list under file manager. I found a tutorial about how to create a manual cron job using the Cron Jobs tool under the Advanced area of my cPanel. Here’s the command line I used according to the tutorial to prompt the scheduler to check every six hours for tasks…

cd /home/userna5/public_html; php -q wp-cron.php

substituting my home path ID where userna5 goes. Will this work with Updraft Plus?

I’m actually getting a “No Input File Specified” message. Duh, because there’s no wp-cron.php file there. Sounds like I just need to get my host to rectify this.

All fixed. Host added wp-cron file back. Apparently they disabled it because of a high rate of bot attacks, etc. ??? Anyway, all good.

Hi,

Their explanation doesn’t really compute, as there’s nothing useful an attacker can do with wp-cron.php – the only purpose in removing it would be to prevent scheduled tasks running. But, if it all works now, then that’s great!

David

I also had the same issue with our hosting provider. They don’t allow loopback connections.

I specified alternate cron in wp-config file but it was located at the bottom of the page. Once the definition was moved before $table_prefix, cron is running normally. I also installed the WP Crontrol plugin that manually lets me edit cron events and schedules. I changed all of the defaults to run much less frequently (as opposed to hourly) so hopefully that helps reduce server load.

Ugh! I;m now having this same issue.

Actually everything was working perfectly till about a day or two ago when I did a LPT upgrade as I was alerted to do on the server and then a whole bunch of little issues started and this issue is one of those.

It does the back up but I get that warning:

“Warning: WordPress has a number (10) of scheduled tasks which are overdue. Unless this is a development site, this probably means that the scheduler in your WordPress install is not working. “

is this a simple fix?